The Smackers Thread

[The Dart]

I'm assuming the next 3 weeks of Smackdown will be shorter than 3 hours live on Netflix too and will then be padded out with additional ad breaks for when it's on the USA Network a few hours later, which is also good.

[Weezenal]

Did Sky/BT ever show RAW or Smackdown live?

[air_raid]

30 minutes ago, Weezenal said:

Did Sky/BT ever show RAW or Smackdown live?

Yes. 3 hour live Raws on Sky Sports circa 2013 used to make me suicidal.

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 hour ago, Weezenal said:

Did Sky/BT ever show RAW or Smackdown live?

Yeah the last few times they were over it was live on BT/TNT

[TildeGuy~!]

What a balls up of an opening segment that was, LA Knight not knowing what to say, Jimmy Uso challenging Knight for the US Tag Titles and Solo Sikoa mixing up his words.

Most of the show felt like “Fuck You Spain, this is what’s happening in Italy next week”

I think the only thing worth mentioning was the Rey Fenix and Aleister Black teasers.

Edited March 14, 2025 by TildeGuy~!

[AndyUK]

Yeah this was definitely the filler TV episode of the European Tour.

Cena/Cody on RAW and Roman on SD next week so the big Mania matches should hopefully heat up then.

I liked the Drew video about Priest, you forget how closely they've been connected over the past year and Priest was the one that benefitted from all those times Punk screwed Drew over. It adds a nice layer to that match and is completely in keeping with Drew's character as well.  

Edited March 14, 2025 by AndyUK

[Supremo]

Another in the long list of overseas shows where a fantastic crowd doesn’t get anywhere near the show they deserve. Maybe next week will be better. They sure told them so. A mostly crap episode, played out in front of underserved, molten heat. It’s a UKFF favourite; hot poo!

Another show-opening promo leading to an impromptu tag match. Rubbish. I’m sure both WWE and AEW had an agreement to mostly make this trope extinct over the last few years. Feels like it happens every Friday night again, now.

Extremely bad acting from Jade Cargill. Streets saying she’s only using pro-wrestling to forge an acting career in Hollywood? I wouldn’t hold my breath. Worse than the springboards, this.

A laughably bad performance from Charlotte Flair. Honestly, lads. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to enjoy her when she returned. No chance. She’s as bad as she’s ever been, if not worse. She looked fucking terrible here. In every way possible.

One of those embarrassing, slow-motion, amateur matches, similar to the one she had with Shotzi. I get it that B-Fab is hardly Bryan Danielson, but fucking hell. Anyone with Charlotte’s level of experience should be able to mask some of the inexperience and work around it. She looked just as lost as B-Fab did. Tentative, floaty, stumbly, awkward, screaming spots at a volume where even John Cena would tell her to keep it down.

And then it just got worse from there. A shockingly bad brawl with Tiffany Stratton. Coming weeks after white hot versions of this trope from MJF and Hangman, and then Seth and Punk, this legitimately looked like two kids play fighting in school. A complete shit show. Charlotte jumping off the table onto Tiffy looked like a toddler jumping into a pool. Tiffy doing the Swanton onto a bunch of security guards, missing Charlotte by about five feet, only for Charlotte to still take a rubbish, comedy bump, like the gust of wind knocked her over. And then best of all, it seemed they sent them back out there to do the spot again from the LED screen and it still looked shit. Surprised they didn’t send them out a third time and got Tiffy to jump off the lighting rig.

You know the CM Punk Pipebomb promo, where he says he’s the best in that ring, on this microphone, even at commentary? Charlotte’s been back weeks and she’s already proven herself to be the antithesis of that. The worst in that ring. On that microphone. Even at commentary. The absolute drizzling shits. Zero instincts. Zero carrying ability. The ultimate worst example of everything wrong with the Performance Center. She’s the worst wrestler of the year thus far and this feud with Tiffy is so dog shit that I’m starting to question whether Stratton was ever good to begin with. Maybe the Mania match will deliver, but even if it does it’s never been clearer as to why. Charlotte must be rehearsing these big pay per view matches months in advance because every single TV match, where she has to work in the moment and think on her feet, she’s as bad as anyone I’ve ever seen pushed to that level.

A Rey Fenix tease! They don’t waste time, do they? Glad it looks like they’ll keep the Lucha Brothers separate to begin with. Definitely the right call.

Was that Smokey, “4,” vignette a Malakai Black tease? “Four,” being the number of clean jobs he’ll do throughout this entire run, probably.

They did another Orton vs. Hayes match! Hilarious! With Orton more juiced than ever, the size discrepancy  looks like this when they wrestle.

DIY introducing a new catchphrase, where they demand, “a moment of silence,” from the crowd. The jokes write themselves. Chris Jericho-levels of tragic, meta character work. “Actually didn’t want to be over, and wanted you to be quiet, so who really wins, yeah?” They sure got a few of those moments in this main event! At least they got the belts off them, but this certainly feels like a lot of TV shows randomly ending with new Champions, doesn’t it? We’ll probably see Pretty Deadly win the Tag Belts in England next week, too. It’s almost as if - bar the Cena turn - this is still a Road to Wrestlemania filled with very few good ideas or clear directions. Is the Satnav of Destiny broken?

Wild that they’re building the World Title match at Wrestlemania by having both Challenger and Champion go 50-50 with jobbers. Paul Heyman’s favour to CM Punk was to get Jey Uso and Gunther booked so badly the last few weeks that you wouldn’t even main event Backlash with it, never mind either night of Wrestlemania. Sheet.

Best thing on the show was Drew and Damien Priest. For what felt like a token match to give each guy something to do at Mania, they did an amazing job tying a knot in everything and pretending they’d been each other’s nemesis this last year. Drew getting a white hot babyface reaction bodes well, too. Cena’s gonna need opponents over the Summer.

On that subject, them advertising John Cena’s return on Monday’s Raw by airing the Triple H press conference clip, where he says, “I don’t know what the hell he’s gonna to do as a heel!” Fuck all the way off. What are we doing here. One of the biggest turns of all time. Sold entirely on the shock and betrayal. And yet to advertise the big promo you’re using Wrestling Observer lingo. Crap.

I had hoped Cena’s first promo would be similar to Roman’s, “This is my yard,” promo. He stands there for ten minutes, the whole crowd booing the shit out of him, and then he just says something like, “Go fuck YOURSELF, Cody!” before walking off. Now, I’m worried he’ll say something wanky like, “HEEL TURN LOL.”

The fucking state of this review. Produce shitty mid-2010s TV shows, get a snarky, dickhead mid-2010s response. Push the cruiserweights.

Edited March 15, 2025 by Supremo

[Hannibal Scorch]

Other than the poor Tiff/Charlotte diving tug of war (so bad they did it 3 times), I thought they did Gunther dirty. No disrespect to Axiom, but he’s a mid carder and he was able to keep up with Gunther. Then he hits two of his finishers and Axiom immediately kicks out!

[LaGoosh]

The only bit of this show I saw was Jacob Fatu doing a 5k run only to somehow miss Braun Strowman and put himself through the barricade. How do you fuck that up?

Pretty funny though.

Edited March 15, 2025 by LaGoosh

[d-d-d-dAz]

6 hours ago, Supremo said:

On that subject, them advertising John Cena’s return on Monday’s Raw by airing the Triple H press conference clip, where he says, “I don’t know what the hell he’s gonna to do as a heel!” Fuck all the way off. What are we doing here. One of the biggest turns of all time. Sold entirely on the shock and betrayal. And yet to advertise the big promo you’re using Wrestling Observer lingo. Crap.

I had hoped Cena’s first promo would be similar to Roman’s, “This is my yard,” promo. He stands there for ten minutes, the whole crowd booing the shit out of him, and then he just says something like, “Go fuck YOURSELF, Cody!” before walking off. Now, I’m worried he’ll say something wanky like, “HEEL TURN LOL.”

So, I actually agree with your review and I'm baffled as to how Mania feels like such a mess. Almost like they've got so many wrestlers they need to do something with they've been struck down by choice paralysis.

But, on this point above, I think that might be a British thing. 'Heel' is just a word for being a prick in America, I was surprised how commonly it was used when I lived there by non wrestling fans. I mean, it wasn't every day but it was enough to notice it, and I think it's coming back into fashion too.

So yes, we know it only through the prism of being a word Meltzer shouts to stop the lady in leather from continuing to whack his todger with a kendo stick, but I think they'd get away with it to an American audience.

Edited March 15, 2025 by d-d-d-dAz

[Kfogg1991]

I don't know about everyone else but recently the live TV show have been constantly plagued with a in ring segment hyping a interaction with a missing big name in another town or another week but expecting the response in the arena to be throwing babies and cheering.

Paul probably delt with it the shittiest by telling them to get on a plane and be there next Friday and not to blame him he's just the messenger..... I mean so close to mania and also I'm right they've pulled certain names that have been advertised for some aswell Like punk I can't remember which they are though 

Very missable show tbh 

[FLips]

Was quite excited by the prospect of watching this live but forgot it wasn’t a PPV and was more a long advert with some matches between. Tapped out partway into the show to go and play Mass Effect.

I’ve no issue with the promo open leading to a tag; I grew up in the Teddy Long Era so this is my bread and butter. It was a decent 6 man too even if Jimmy and Solo can’t cut a promo and Jacob gored himself through the barricade. Decent TV match.

Charlotte vs B-Fab wasn’t as bad as I was expecting but I can’t say it impressed me. I thought the brawl after was actually decent but it was ruined by Charlotte’s insistence on wearing sparkly pink, like a jealous cousin that shows up to a wedding in a white dress for attention. Two Barbie-blonde white women in sparkly pink. Me and my wife couldn’t tell who was who almost the entire time. You’re coming back to feud with Tiffy Stratton, wear a different fucking colour. Tiffy swantoning the security was impressive but she missed Charlotte by a mile.

I luckily started watching half an hour late so could skip the Nakamura vs Priest match and just watch the Drew beatdown, and skip the Orton vs Hayes match. I’m not interested in Nakamura or Priest, who constantly looks and sounds like someone playing a wrestler. Hayes is shite and needs to go before the company wastes any more time on him (or H1M) or whatever dumb way they do it. Like Supremo said Randy made him look like a baby, it was embarrassing. No sold what might be his finish or signature and just ended it as he deserved.

At this point with a DIY match to come I counted my losses and realised actually Smackdown is pretty rubbish and I’m not enjoying it. I did see the DIY entrance on Reddit this morning. What a laugh. Couldn’t even get a reaction off that crowd. B-Fab got a couple of chants even! Mortifying.

 

Edited March 15, 2025 by FLips

[RedTwoster]

My goodness, that was a bad show. When they were trailing Charlotte vs B-Fab, I had to question what else they were planning to offer if they felt this was worth mentioning. You’d be more likely to retain viewership if you were to trail that the match wasn’t happening than it was. 

I actually gave up on the show during the Chelsea/Zelena confrontation after wearing out my fast-forward button. This might be the worst WWE show I’ve seen since the McMahon era. They essentially took a week off, while still choosing to broadcast. Just abysmal. Here’s hoping they step it up on Monday. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

I was talking to someone on Thursday who said “the last few tv shows have been purposefully bad because the European tour is kicking off and they are saving stuff for that”. Well, not based on that. But, even before that I said that’s not how you run a business. WWE are charging more than ever, and to treat your audience as basically fodder to promote better shows elsewhere is not a sustainable business model.

[RedTwoster]

7 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I was talking to someone on Thursday who said “the last few tv shows have been purposefully bad because the European tour is kicking off and they are saving stuff for that”. Well, not based on that. But, even before that I said that’s not how you run a business. WWE are charging more than ever, and to treat your audience as basically fodder to promote better shows elsewhere is not a sustainable business model.

I think it’s very probable that it’s a combination of the gap between Elimination Chamber and Wrestlemania, and the fact a lot of their main storylines involve people who’re not there each week. Given that Cody has been appearing on both shows, while Cena and The Rock have not, that storyline has ended up in a holding pattern. If they didn’t want Cena to reveal anything until his first in-person appearance, they’d should have at least recorded something with The Rock, while they had access to him.

Then you have Punk/Reigns/Rollins. The fact Roman and presumably Herman work limited dates has me wondering if that’s why it’s become a triple threat - allowing Punk and Rollins to continue the feud in their absence, without it feeling like the one-man show that Cody/Cena is.

I suspect things will improve when Cena and Roman appear more often, but they’ve lost a good amount of momentum in the mean time.

And that also doesn’t excuse how flat everything else feels, or some of their daft decisions, like turning the appealing Ripley/Belair match into a triple threat.